Dallas Police Finally Break Silence on Fruit Ninja Incident [Updated]

In case you missed it, the Dallas Police Department tweeted the following over the weekend: "@DallasPD: I just sliced 38 fruit in Classic Mode on Fruit Ninja for iPhone!" This was followed quickly by a retraction: "Our apologies for the fruit Ninja tweet sent earlier. One of our kids played the game on our iPhone and unknowingly tweeted their score."

By that point, however, the Tweet was echoing through the most distant corners of the Internet. Despite considerable interest, the department stayed mum. "We're not commenting or giving interviews about this," spokeswoman Melinda Gutierrez told Romanesko. But inquiring minds want to know, and DPD has finally relented, offering a detailed account of events on its Facebook page.

On Saturday, January 26, 2013, at 9:11 pm, CST, a mysterious tweet from @DallasPD regarding a Fruit Ninja (38 fruit sliced in Classic Mode!) score appeared in the Twitterverse. This raised numerous questions (and a bit of panic) from the Media Relations staff - did @DallasPD become self aware? Was the account hacked by an enemy of the state? What is Fruit Ninja?

Many of our followers also had questions, chief among them, were taxpayer dollars used? And was it our highest score ever?

After a thorough investigation (CSI: Fruit Ninja!), the source of this tweet was traced to a 5 year old boy, who after hours of interrogation signed a written statement admitting his role in Fruitgate.

The DPD Media Relations Staff would like to assure the public that no taxpayer dollars were used, nor was it the culprit's highest score ever. We do appreciate the retweets and responses we have received. We have learned a sobering lesson from this experience - security threats are not confined to the hacker world. But perhaps the most embarrassing part for us was the realization that our most "viral" post did not come from a post about a suspect wanted for murder, a robber, or even a critical missing person, but from a bored five year old playing on his mommy's iPhone.

The explanation is accompanied by a exhortation against drunken driving after the Super Bowl, the stated connection between the two subjects being that the score on Fruit Ninja (38) is also the number of points scored by the San Francisco 49ers in the 1985 Super Bowl; the Oakland Raiders in the 1984 Super Bowl; and the Giants and Patriots combined in their 2012 matchup.

Update at 12:27 p.m.: Dallas ISD's police force is not impressed.

Great info but not a great score."@dallaspd: Fruit Ninja, Super Bowl, and the Dallas Police Department fb.me/1WFONYPin"